Other than the occasional correspondence with readers who didn't like the sentences I ended with prepositions, I never though much about prepositions until my daughter came home with a list of fifty she needed to memorize. I thought the assignment a bit odd, but as I researched today's topic, I realized how confusing those pesky prepositions can be. Hopefully today's crop of sites will help both native and non-native speakers with their grammar lessons.
Is it improper to end a sentence with a preposition? As a devotee of Patricia T. O'Conner's "Woe is I" grammar guide, I believe the silly rule about not ending sentences with prepositions should rest in peace. This Coffee Talk article from Dr. Rick Walston of Columbia Evangelical Seminary, discusses where the rule originated, and quotes a handful of respected sources who agree it's time to throw that rule out!
Designed specifically for ESL students, English Grammar Quizzes hosts hundreds of (you guessed it) interactive quizzes. Fifteen of them are on the subject of prepositions. To find them, use your browser search function to find the word "Prepositions" on this index page. The multiple-choice quizzes vary in length from ten questions to forty-one questions. Although there are a few questions with more than one correct answer, the site is still worth visiting.
This page focuses entirely on phrasal verbs. "A phrasal verb is a verb plus a preposition which creates a meaning different from the original verb. EXAMPLE: I ran into my teacher at the movies last night." Another one designed for ESL students, it has lots of examples, a dictionary of phrasal verbs, and twenty interactive quizzes. With verbs that change their meaning based on a tiny preposition, no wonder learning English as a second language is such a challenge.
"Prepositions expressing spatial relations are of two kinds: prepositions of location and prepositions of direction." This page explains the differences between three common prepositions of location: "at," "on," and "in." To skip to the page on prepositions of direction ("to," "onto," and "into") use this link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslprep.html . Each topic page includes a link to a quiz, and is available in PDF for ease of printing.
Two quizzes, three crosswords, lists of common prepositions, hyperlinks to pages on other parts of speech, and an in-depth explanation of the grammar of prepositions, all add up to make Professor Darling's site my pick of the day. Don't miss the first quiz for an opportunity to click on all the prepositions in a paragraph from Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." For more Hemingway, follow the prepositional phrases link in the first paragraph.
Buy Prepositions Printable for $2.00
or try a FREE trial of the Printables ClubThe following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space constraints. Enjoy!
English Club: PrepositionsEnglish-Zone Prepositions and Conjunctions | Prepositions Crossword PuzzlePrepositions: Little Things Mean a Lot |
Free Surfnetkids Newsletter ...Get educational website recommendations in your mailbox every week:Our Privacy Pledge: your email address is never shared with anyone. |
Headline Feed | Online Safety Feed | Newsletter Feed
